


The twisted paths we lead

by Raven_hoodoo



Series: McReyes Week 17 [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 00:23:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12782868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_hoodoo/pseuds/Raven_hoodoo
Summary: For McReyes week 17Life is the choices we make, the paths we take and the consequences that we may or may not live through.





	The twisted paths we lead

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, sorry I haven't updated 'A truth you need to believe' yet; life got hectic real fast. Anyway, to get back into the swing of things I thought I'd do the McReyes week 17 prompts. These will not be highly edited, they will be a little messy and there will be errors but I hope you like it anyway.

Its a choice Mccree makes that starts it all. Fitting with the way fate weaves around him, not to keep him happy but to keep him alive. He's with a fellow member of deadlock, continuing the protection racket they have in the gorge. It is routine in its simplicity, unaware as they are that Blackwatch is watching them. Has been for sometime. A young woman opens the door and starts crying. Through binoculars the conversation cannot be heard but it is clear that young Mccree is comforting her all southern charm, body blocking the leers of his companion. He moves to leave, pulling at his companion's sleeve when he resists. Right there in the street there is an argument, Mccree going cold in his intensity even as the other gestures wildly. The man only realises his mistake when Mccree's hand goes to his gun. The shot echoes in the valley, a single headshot silencing the other. It is common for deadlock members to kill each other in the street, less common for the survivor to turn and tip his hat in contrition to the horrified witness.

 

_There is a path where Mccree suppressed his morals, let his friend have his way with the young woman. In all the realities that exist he never took it._

 

It is fitting then that if a choice by Mccree is the beginning, it is a choice by Reyes that allows for a middle and an end. The raid is a success, with the only casualties being kneecaps by the young man groaning on the floor. He's taken a chest wound, occasionally coughing pitifully and coating his lips in blood. Reyes knows he'll die if nothing is done. Has seen too many young men die like this in the war. He remembers the young man from earlier today, remembers his smile at the young lady, the way he saunters, the perfect picture of a gunslinger if he were only 10 years older. He has seen the teenager in action, how fast he reacted to take out several of Reyes men in a matter of moments.

"So much potential," is Reyes only conscious thought as he orders his medics towards the teenager. Thoughts considering his youth and the obvious good inside him have no place in the head of the Blackwatch field commander.

 

_There is a path where Reyes left Mccree to bleed out on the floor of the Deadlock stronghold. He follows a year later when there is no brave rookie to pull him out of the path of bastion fire._

 

There are simple choices - ones that feel like they should make no difference at all, but inform all that is to follow. Reyes agrees to grab a beer with Mccree. Its late after a mission success and the rest of the team has already dispersed. Mccree doesn’t follow them. He’s not a proper soldier and doesn’t always fit in, Reyes tells himself. Really grabbing a drink with the young man is just an action of pity. In truth, Mccree can fit in anywhere if he so desires.  In truth, it is lonely at the top. The easy camaraderie of Overwatch complicated by how little Reyes gets to see his old friends. In truth, there a mission briefing in the office that he is desperately trying to avoid and Mccree offers an easy substitute.

 

They go out and Reyes is surprised to find how much he enjoys Mccree’s company. They talk into the early hours of the morning about colleagues, about work and about the old western movies for which Reyes has a hidden love and Mccree has a not-so-hidden adoration. Mccree even gets a little maudlin towards the end, expressing through tears just how grateful he is for the chance to do good in this world. Reyes ignores the twinge of guilt when he thinks back to the mission briefing on his desk and decides its probably time to call it a night.

 

_They will do this again. They will do it many times. Drinks in celebration and in mourning. But despite everything, Reyes will never be able to open himself up completely. It won’t matter until it matters a lot but by then it will be too late to start._

 

The mission briefing is waiting when Reyes recovers from his hangover. It’s from the UN. Orders for a kidnapping and assassination. Blackwatch has always existed in the shadows, always done what Overwatch wouldn’t but this feels different. Is different. Reyes thinks on being a soldier, about following orders and about giving them. He thinks about Jack and how they haven’t been able to have a proper conversation in several months. Jack’s signature is at the bottom of the briefing. If Jack approved it, it couldn’t be...maybe there was an aspect of the mission that he hadn’t been read in on. He hasn’t been able to get in contact with Jack and the deadline for the mission is rapidly approaching. He’d been dragging his feet hoping- but there was nothing for it now. He thinks on Mccree, tears in his eyes as he expressed happiness at being able to do good in this world. For the mission he takes Danvers and Ricaro and ignores the hurt look in Mccree’s eyes.

 

_There is a path where Reyes takes Mccree on the mission and listens to his objections when they come up. Where Mccree is able to stop him before it goes too far. There is a path where Reyes listens to his own conscience, his own misgivings and the mission never goes ahead in the first place. In some realities when Jack and him are united they manage to thread the needle and build a better tomorrow. In most where Gabe is isolated his bosses regroup and whittle away at him until he gives in and does what they want. In most, it all falls apart anyway._

 

The drinks continue with Mccree. There is something there, they both know that. Something in the lingering touches, the times they’ve caught the other staring. Reyes is held back by a sense of impropriety, the sense that his own soul is tainted beyond measure and this man he may love deserves something more. Mccree is held back by the sense that Reyes is hiding something from him and his own fear of still being no-good scum at heart. There is blood in both of their ledgers, innocents do not lead the lives they live.

 

Then as it often goes, there is a mission; a too close call that leaves both of them bloody but alive. A piece of debris has pierced Mccree’s thigh but clearly did not hit the femoral artery as Mccree is still alive enough to curse like a sailor. As gently as possible, Reyes wraps the wound to keep it stable until transport. ETA is five minutes so Reyes chooses to take the time to try and calm himself. Like his first thought when hearing the gasp of pain behind him wasn’t that Mccree had taken a bullet. Like his heart hadn’t stopped for a moment before Mccree’s voice brought him back to life. He closes his eyes and counts breaths hoping the images will go away. Mccree dead or dying. Another victim to his errors of judgement. His ears are ringing, it takes a moment for him to notice Mccree softly saying his name, calling him back. He opens his eyes to Mccree openly staring at him, staring at his lips. “Gabe,” he says, once more for good measure. Then he reaches out for Reyes’ cheek. Reyes leans into it on instinct. The battlefield feels muted as they stare at each other waiting for the other to make the first move. It's a mistake, another mistake in a long line of them. Reyes knows this as surely he knows he’s breathing. He leans in anyway. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as they kiss. Mccree is warm against his lips. He is alive. They only break apart when the transport comms for their specific location. Reyes can’t help but rest his head in the crest of Mccree’s neck after he answers. To feel Mccree’s pulse, the silent rise and fall of his chest. They’re alive but they so easily couldn’t have been. Reyes resolves to find a talented medic like Mercy for Blackwatch asap. He had to keep Mcc- Jesse safe.

 

_In some realities they remain subordinate and commander. It's hard to say whether the ability to remain objective with one another would have helped in the long run. It's even harder to say whether, unacknowledged or not, the love that they had would ever allow objectivity at all._

 

Jesse objects to Moira’s hiring. Reyes had had feelers out for a prodigy, one to rival the skill of Angela. And he’d found one, questionable ethics aside. What wasn’t questionable ethics these days? His bosses handed out morally ambiguous briefings like candy. Overwatch was building cyborg weapons and passing them off to Blackwatch without so much as a proper conversation. There were leaks in the organisation, missions going wrong where they should have gone right and Reyes couldn’t help but feel like he was at the top of a very precarious house of cards. He’d wanted to shield Jesse from that, from the daggers poised to stab them in the back. From the shadows around Jesse’s eyes he was pretty sure he wasn’t doing a good job of it. But the time to come clean had come and gone and now it was just- he didn’t know where to start.

 

“She looks at us like lab rats Gabe! I don’t trust her and you shouldn’t either! You don’t see the way she looks at you when you’re not paying attention!” Was he jealous? It didn’t make sense but nothing seemed to these days.

 

“Jesse I- You know I love you right? She just- I have an eye for potential okay? I knew from the moment I saw you, how brilliant you could be and look how that turned out. I just need you to trust me.”

 

“It’s not you I don’t trust Gabe. But Genji and I are going to keep going to Angela for health checks and I wish you would too. I don’t- there is something about her that is off alright. You need to give me something here, something more than trust me. We’re partners aren’t we?” Jesse looks at him expectantly but Gabe can’t bring himself to meet his eyes. “Or maybe not.”

 

Gabe continues to stare at his hands long after the silence has gone from hurt to anger. He doesn’t give away that his grip on the table is the only thing keeping him standing. Only lets himself flinch when the door slams closed, only lets himself collapse when the sound of Jesse’s footsteps are long gone from the corridor. The muscles in his arms continue to spasm and he sits crumpled on the floor. There are things he should of told Jesse before now. Like the politics that is happening around them. Like the knife hanging over his head. Like the fact his SEP is failing and he’s pretty sure Moira is his only hope in that regard. There are so many things they should have spoken about but he couldn’t find a place to start. He never wanted Jesse to feel crushed by his problems. Never wanted him to decide that Blackwatch, that Reyes was too much, that he needed to leave. But now the foundations are crumbling and he’s going to lose him anyway. Going to lose it all unless he gets it together. He gives himself five minutes to rebuild himself up. When he leaves the room there is no signs of Gabe Reyes, only the hardened Blackwatch commander going to speak with his new recruit.

 

_In some realities he works out how to tell Jesse whats going on. In some they work through everything together. In some they even manage to salvage Blackwatch and Overwatch from the corruption tearing it apart. There are some realities where Jesse goes to Moira despite his misgivings. These then branch into those where he works out what she’s doing and Reaper never exists. Of course there are also those where Talon has two wraiths. Inseparable, even in death._

 

Je-Mccree leaves on a Monday. Reyes was on a mission until Thursday. With leave booked and Reyes away nobody thinks of question his disappearance. These are the facts as Reyes knows them when he returns from a grueling two week mission to find his room cleared of cowboy gear and a small note saying “I’m sorry, I couldn’t do this anymore.” He feels angry at first, how dare Mccree break up with him via note. This transitions to panic when the AI helpfully informs him that Mccree was last seen on base on Monday, that he’d checked out a transport and nobody asked when he’d come back. This transitions to feeling numb when he finds the transport has been left at a nearby train hub, when he comes to the realisation that in an operative as good as Mccree with a three day lead, the chances of finding him are almost zero. He almost tries to follow anyway.

 

The anger comes back when he returns to his room to find the note where he left it in his hurry to find where Mccree had gone. The room doesn’t look like his anymore, doesn’t look like theirs. He wants to find some evidence of Mccree’s presence in the room. Something that makes what they were feel real again. That's his last thought until he wakes a half hour later to a room utterly destroyed. Blackouts were sometimes a side effect of the treatment Moira had said. He’d never had one so destructive before though. Had never been abandoned by the man he loved before either. He thinks about tracking Mccree down, thinks about all the words gone unspoken and the way everything is falling apart. In the end he decides that Jesse’s freedom will be the last thing he can ever give him and leaves it all well alone.

 

_There is a path where he hunts down Mccree with all the wrath of a man scorned. It is difficult to find the lone gunslinger but in some realities he does. In some they actually talk. In others Reyes blackouts and wakes to a bloody corpse. Not all the decisions Reyes made towards the end were bad ones._

 

Fate has always weaved around the gunslinger. An act of kindness at the right time to make a grizzled soldier think he could be more. Shrapnel inches from a deadly wound. A serendipitous decision to leave just weeks before everything hit a breaking point. Fate was not always kind to him however. Born into a war that would kill his parents and leave him easy pickings to be initiated into a violent gang. Brought into Blackwatch where was he was fated to see those few he had chosen to love leave, die or be torn apart in front of him. The choice to go it alone unable to free him of the trouble that followed him like a second shadow. Fate had marked him at a young age with a Chinese curse to live in interesting times but as she took she also gave.

 

From the rooftop he saw the strings of fate connecting the talon soldiers to each other, the lives they would love, the lives they would take. He saw the string connecting them to life and could sever it in a heartbeat. But they were not the ones he was here for today. He was here for the rumours of a ghost, a wraith with dual shotguns which sounded like hellfire. He was here on the chance that his own heartstring remained unsevered after Zurich even as it blackened and warped. A movement in the corner of his eye has him readjusting his sights to the sudden appearance of black smoke beside him. It had been a long and exhausting battle, the wraith had been moving sluggishly when he saw it last. He knows he could line up a shot now for while normal bullets could not kill the wraith, he knew the fates would grant him this one last kindness. The wraith is fully formed now, he can feel its eyes upon him even as he can only stare into the deep depths of the owl mask. The strings around it are all warped, twisted and frayed. The shot is ready now, the wraith seeming content to stand with its guns to its side. Two paths open, waiting on a choice. While in the midst of Deadeye, Mccree caresses the heartstring between them, expecting it to break. It bounces softly in his hand, sending reverberations up to his heart. He smiles to himself and lets Deadeye fade.

 

“Gabriel I know you’re still there. Come back.” He proffers a hand, knowing full well it could be the last thing he ever does.

 

The wraith stares at it for some time, trigger fingers still twitching. His guns fall with little ceremony.

 

_There are many realities where only one of them leaves this rooftop. Many where the Reaper leaves having had his revenge on the ingrate who left him. Where the gunslinger walks away with grim satisfaction having ended the cursed half-life of the man he once loved. Here and now there are only the consequences of the paths taken and hope for the future paths to take._


End file.
